Sunday, March 30, 2014

Plot: Bellagrand is a sequel to Sons of Liberty (which might be a better starting point for new readers than this book) and
written as a backstory to Simons’ bestselling trilogy, which begins with The
Bronze Horseman. In Sons of Liberty,
blueblood and Harvard educated Harry Barrington met a beautiful Italian
immigrant, Gina Attaviano. They eloped
prior to Bellagrand and, disowned by his wealthy Brahmin family and unable to
hold a job, Harry continues and escalates his involvement in radical politics
while Gina takes on the most menial jobs to support him and her infirm
mother. Gina’s worry about Harry’s incendiary
ideas and companions is made worse by her longing for a child. Ultimately, she and Harry share a bond that survives
through passion, betrayal and heartbreak.

What I liked: My favorite parts were those set in Lawrence (I was there just a few weeks ago), where Harry and
Gina live as newlyweds with her mother, and in Boston where her brother Salvo
works. I enjoyed the descriptions of the
tight knit Italian communities in Boston’s North End and the labor disputes in
the Lawrence mills (having represented one of the few modern day leftovers,
Polartec, this was especially poignant).
The author played with Boston readers a bit when she has Gina’s brother
get a job in the molasses factory in the North End (“No, no, no,” I muttered to
myself). There are intriguing scenes set
in Concord, MA, one of my favorite places, where Gina volunteers with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter, Rose.

What I disliked: Harry was a
very unsympathetic character, and Gina enables his behavior by staying with
him, which made their story somewhat dark and depressing. However, most contemporary
characters would have expected nothing less of her because marriage was
supposed to be forever. Admittedly, because
Gina and Harry were not married in the Catholic church, she was no longer a
practicing Catholic and not bound by Catholic doctrine that forbade divorce. However, the author makes clear that Gina
remains influenced by her religious upbringing, which modern readers may not understand. One thing that surprised me was her crossing
herself whenever anyone uttered the words, “Our father;” I had never heard of that
particular Catholic tradition.

About the Author: Paullina Simons is the author of the acclaimed
novels Tully, Red Leaves, Eleven Hours, and The Bronze
Horseman. Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, she graduated from the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk, Jayhawk), and has lived in Rome, London, and Dallas. Find out more about Paullina at her website, follow her on Twitter and connect
with her on Facebook.

Source: I received this book
from TLC Book Tours and urge you to stop by the tour to learn how this book
fits into the story of Alexander Belov - not the Soviet basketball player!

Saturday, March 22, 2014

My younger sister gets an email from the school library
every time her six year old checks out a book.
This would have infuriated me as a child because I liked reading books
adults often thought were too old for me.
I remember three specific incidents:
in third grade I was reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and although my
mother had read The Hobbit to my middle sister and me I suspected she might
think this book was too scary or over my head[1] so
I kept it tucked in my desk drawer with a red felt pen I used to write down an
occasional vocabulary word. On Teacher’s
Night, Mrs. Freilich[2]
exposed my secret to my parents! I think
my mother was amused and my father reclaimed his pen (which were apparently
banned at school, although no one had told me) but I certainly never trusted
her again.

The next year my parents were duly waiting their turn behind
a husband and wife they knew very slightly.These people were complaining that someone in the class had given their daughter
an extremely unsuitable book.Somehow
my mother guessed it was me and waited apprehensively to see what it had
been.Then Miss Barnes said audibly,
“Maybe Suzanne wasn’t quite ready for The Secret Garden but it is a lovely book
she will enjoy some day.”See, I was
just helping her improve her mind!Miss
Barnes and I did not always see eye to eye but she read aloud often and
introduced me to some wonderful books:On to Oregon, The Black Stallion, and The Phantom Tollbooth (this latter became such a favorite I chose it to giveaway in World Book Night last year.

Later, in seventh grade, at a new school where the library
contained little new fiction but was full of Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and
religious-themed books like Miracle at Carville, I discovered Anya Seton
and became entranced by her masterpiece, Katherine.I must not have been very good at
concealment because, thinking the book was very racy based on the cover, I hid it under my pillow
where my mother, innocently changing the sheets, found it.I came into my room to find her curled up
with John of Gaunt, and she happily told me she had read that book the year she
finished high school when it was serialized by the Ladies Home Journal.The only remonstrations I ever got from her
regarding my choice of books was her desire that I would not race through an
author too quickly, denying myself the pleasure of anticipating a delightful
read.

[1]
My mother would not have been totally wrong.
I had read Carolyn Haywood’s book, Primrose Day, the previous year,
which features an English girl named Merry (and inspired my interest in evacuation stories).
As a result, I thought Tolkien’s hobbit Merry was a female hobbit. There were plenty of male possessive pronouns
but I airily dismissed those as typos and wondered about a possible romance
between Merry and Pippin for some time.
I paused in my reading when Gandalf fell in the Mines of Moira and did
not return to the Lord of the Rings until I turned 11 or 12.

[2]
She already had a conflict of interest issue that had been unaddressed. She had previously taught the other first
grade section and one of her students, Laura Rabinowitz, who later attended
Brown, was a flower girl at her wedding.
Fourteen months later, Mrs. Freilich began to teach third grade and
Laura was in our class! Favoritism resulted.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Plot: When New York literary agent
Isabel Reed receives the manuscript of a potentially bestselling book, it
causes incredible danger for anyone who reads it because it reveals a damaging
secret of a powerful media mogul. For
Isabel, in addition to fearing for her life and those she has involved, an
added element is that she guesses the identity of the anonymous author. A CIA operative is leading a covert operation
extending from Copenhagen to the US to prevent the manuscript from ever being
published, and he will let nothing stop him from burying the true story of the
long-ago accident.

What I liked: I had read reviews of Pavone’s first book, The Expats, and kept
meaning to pick it up. I was pleased to get the opportunity to read
his second book, which is set in the back-biting media world of the 21st
century and is getting just as much praise. Having worked for NYC publishers for 17 years, I particularly enjoyed the publishing setting, which was perfectly drawn and set the book apart from ordinary thrillers – my two favorite parts were 1) when the Subsidiary Rights Director
helped herself to the anonymous manuscript and 2) the description of an editor’s joy when
his lunch date cancels. As the action
picked up, interrupted by flashbacks to the fatal night of the accident, even
the slightest characters played an important part in a startling resolution. I look forward to sharing this with my Book
Group, as it is a very different genre from our usual fiction. And I plan to go back to TheExpats to read about my favorite character, Kate.

Later: I listened to The Expats on CD while painting my guest room in early 2015 and thought it was a million times better than The Accident.

What I disliked: I found the pace slow,
especially at the beginning, when seemingly unconnected elements were being set up for the reader. I also
found the author’s use of the present tense somewhat distracting, although it
was probably meant to add to the sense of urgency.

Source: I received this book
from TLC Book Tours and urge you to stop by the tour to see what other bloggers
have been saying about The Accident:

Plot:William Beaumont, a fulling miller’s son, is an
ambitious but unsophisticated young man, whose dream is to study medicine at a
university.When he catches sight of
Alicia Bearham, niece to the nobility, he falls madly in love.Surprisingly, Alicia returns his feelings,
and even more improbably, her family – far from warning him to keep his
distance – invites him to accompany them on a pilgrimage to Spain.Her family is unfortunately connected to one
of the men who murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and must expiate
its guilt (although Henry II, who instigated the crime – “Will no one rid me of
this turbulent priest?” - escapes significant punishment) in order to regain
its reputation.William and his companions experience many
adventures and dangers in France and Spain before returning to England.

Audience: Fans of Judith Merkle Riley; armchair travelers; those planning or dreaming of a pilgrimage.

My Impressions: I was attracted to this book
by the cover, which has a Pre-Raphaelite look despite its 12th century setting,
and the author’s obvious passion for pilgrimages. I was reminded of a book called Mount Joy by Daisy Newman I read many years ago about a young woman who leaves a college like Radcliffe to go
on pilgrimage (until I looked it up on Goodreads moments ago I didn’t recall she also traveled
to Santiago de Compostela). In fact, I
was surprised to read that pilgrims still travel to Santiago de Compostela in huge numbers (250,000 in 2010); I had thought there were more obvious destinations such as Rome and the Holy Land.

I did feel strongly the manuscript
needed an editor. The anachronistic language
was very jarring and could easily have been avoided (“Hey, Will, are you
alright?” “Still fancy her, do you?” “Is this why you’ve been so insecure about
us?” and so on. The concept of a medical
“internship” may have existed in the 12th century but not by that name, and at one point I swear the
characters went to lunch!). William was more interesting when passionate about healing than when infatuated with Alicia. Their rhapsodic utterances to each other were repetitive.

However, Sylvia Nilsen is
knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her subject. She has
been the editor for a travel guide publisher and her company, amaWalkersCamino, takes small groups of pilgrims on the Camino Frances pilgrimage route
in Spain. She also walked from Paris to
Spain to do the research for this book. For
more information on Sylvia Nilsen, please visit her website.
You can also find her on Facebook.

Source: I received this book from the HistoricalFiction Virtual Book Tours and urge you to stop by the tour to learn more about
the author and see what other bloggers had to say about this book.

Plot:
Clement and Angel are twins left at a small orphanage in the frontier town of
Stillwater, Minnesota. Angel, adopted
by a wealthy local couple, is the victim of Munchausen by proxy
syndrome, while
her brother, Clement, left cruelly behind at the orphanage, is cared for by the
headmistress nun and an elderly Indian, Big Waters. Stillwater Home for Orphans is also an
important stop on the Underground Railroad, and even as a child Clement becomes
involved in the transport of this precious commodity – human lives. Davis, the son of one unfortunate runaway
slave, is taken in by the kindhearted women in Stillwater’s brothel, The Red
Swan (their antics provide some humorous relief to the dark depiction of
frontier life). As the three children
grow up, their lives remain connected although Angel’s marriage causes heartbreak
to Davis, causing him to enlist with Clement in the Stillwater Guard of the
First Minnesota (shades of Emily Webster’s grandfather!). Depiction of life in the Union Army makes
even the turmoil of Stillwater seem like a picnic.

My Impressions: Helget is an accomplished
writer, and this book caught my eye when I noticed that she had received her
B.A. and M.F.A. from Mankato State (Mankato is also the real life home of MaudHart Lovelace, author of the beloved Betsy-Tacy books). However, I found the book both readable and very dark, full of
lonely and mistreated characters with nothing to look forward to. At times, that prevented me from enjoying her
prose as much as I had hoped. In addition, the author’s back and forth from
present day to flashback was confusing. I
was intrigued by the background concerning Minnesota moving from being a
territory to a state, a part of Minnesota’s history with which I am unfamiliar.

Source: Thank you to the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours which provided me with this book in return for an honest review. I urge
you to stop by the tour to learn more about the author and see what various bloggers
had to say about this book:

Staircase Wit

The French call it l'esprit d'escalier, "the wit of the staircase," those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late, on the way out of the room - or even, to tell the truth, days later.